The soil at Adobe House Farm in Durango, Colorado, gets better each time the landscaping trucks, brimming with leaves from a nearby housing development, make a delivery. Linley Dixon, a farmer and soil scientist for the Cornucopia Institute, says that over the years the leaves have helped raise her soil’s organic matter from 2 percent to about 8 percent.

Dixon practices a farming method she calls “regenerative agriculture.” She uses compost, cover crops, and tills only minimally. These practices have been around since at least the 1970s, and have often been described as organic or agroecological. But Dixon says that regenerative agriculture goes further than most organic farming, and she hopes to help bring the approach to the mainstream.

Dixon and other members of the movement have used the growing threat of climate change as their rallying cry. “There’s so much doom and gloom around climate change, so if you can come up with a solution, it’s absolutely exciting,” Dixon said. At the Cornucopia Institute, regenerative agriculture is touted as a protection for farmers against the floods and droughts that are becoming more frequent in our rapidly warming world.

Dixon and the Cornucopia Institute aren’t alone. The people behind Holistic Management International, the Carbon Underground, Green America, and the Rodale Institute are all working to make inroads to bring regenerative ag to the mainstream. In some cases, these organizations are in conversations with suppliers, regulators, and manufacturers to begin using the term as a label on food. And while it’s not clear that the market has room for another eco-label, some regenerative ag advocates appear to be pushing that agenda forward.

Seizing an Opportune Moment

Because the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has oversight over the certified organic label, changes to existing rules have happened slowly. Case in point: The agency spent years working on an update to the animal welfare practices put forth in the current certification. Despite some momentum at the beginning of 2017, under the Trump administration it has been delayed several times. Similarly, while organic standards call for special attention to soil fertility, not all organic farms practice those techniques.

With a growing number of large producers transitioning some or all of their business to organic to capture the market, challenges to the label’s legitimacy have arisen, as evidenced by two scathing Washington Postinvestigativepieces spotlighting the USDA’s failure to regulate organic products.

And even more are confused by alternative labels: A 2016 Consumer Reports survey found that 73 percent of consumers sought out products labeled “natural”—a label with no regulatory teeth—while only 58 percent look for organic products. This may be due in part to a 2012 Stanford meta-analysis study that found organic food is only slightly more nutritious than conventionally grown food, although the report’s methodology has drawn criticism.

“The organic certification is struggling. There are people who feel like it’s been watered down,” said Ann Adams, executive director of Holistic Management International. She also points to the fact that while less than 1 percent of farmland in the U.S. is certified organic, organic sales account for closer to 4 percent of the market. “Because we can’t produce enough of these organic products in this country, we’re importing a lot and people are looking the other way.”

And while foods grown using regenerative practices may help fill the void left by inadequate organic regulation, Adams said, it would likely be an uphill battle to convince consumers to buy them. “The number one reason people buy organic is for the health of their children,” she said, pointing out that some regenerative tenets—soil health and farmworker rights, for example—may be too abstract to win over organic customers.

But Larry Kopald, president and co-founder of the Carbon Underground, sees the climate argument as an effective marketing pitch for regenerative farming. According to its website, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit specializes in “crafting campaigns that motivate people to act,” with past clients including Honda, American Express, PepsiCo, and McDonalds. “We’d like to get to a point where we can hang a sign above the apples at the co-op that says, ‘These apples helped reverse climate change.’ The pressure that would put on the apples next to them would be immense,” Kopald said.

Carbon Underground is in the early stages of discussions with “investment and development people” to bring regenerative ag to the public consciousness. Kopald declined to give details, but said that the organization has worked with California State University, Chico and the National Co-op Association on the project and he hopes to achieve “significant scale” within five years.

Avoiding ‘Label Burnout’

One key challenge facing Kopald and other proponents is the question of certification. Should such a certification fit within the confines of the existing National Organic Program, for instance? The answer depends on whom you ask.

“Most people feel there needs to be a certification or a label to let people know the food they’re buying is making the planet healthy and reversing climate change,” Kopald said. “But there is certification burnout out there.”

Kopald’s preliminary plan sees a regenerative label being used separately from the USDA-certified organic label. But he added that those who really want to eat healthy while ensuring the planet’s health would probably want to buy both regenerative and certified organic products.

Urvashi Rangan, former executive director of the Consumer Reports Food Safety and Sustainability Center and a current consultant on sustainable food systems, said a regenerative product label could legitimize the movement. She stressed, however, that products would need to be undergirded by a set of “meaningful” standards.

“You want to make sure it’s not being watered down,” she said. “What we need to avoid is a bunch of regenerative claims where consumers have to decide, ‘Is that one meaningful or not?’”

Rangan said a regenerative product label “probably” will crop up in the relatively near future, and that there may be more than one—at least at first.

Improving Organic vs. Competing with It

At the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, executive director Jeff Moyer wants to use regenerative ag to help raise the standards of the National Organic Program. The Institute is uniquely positioned to make that happen, since founder J. I. Rodale popularized the term “organic” in the 1940s and Robert Rodale began using “regenerative” in the 1980s.

“We want to be very cautious and maintain ownership of the word regenerative and link it to organic as a baseline,” Moyer said. “We’re well aware of what happened to the word ‘sustainable’—it was a buzzword and it became so watered down it became meaningless. There’s going to be a battle for words and language expressed over the next few years.” That battle could manifest itself in the form of a trademark, he said.

Moyer said Rodale is also in discussions with “specific partners” in the marketing and food industries regarding regenerative, but gave few details. A Rodale spokeswoman said, “there will be some big announcements with really well-known brands and some products that are going to be on the market.”

Laura Batcha, CEO and executive director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), said, “from our perspective, organic is regenerative.” Organic growing practices already facilitate carbon sequestration, she said; a forthcoming study by the OTA’s Organic Center and Northeastern University is expected to show higher levels of sequestration in organic soil than in conventional soil.

As far as the possibility of regenerative products competing for consumer dollars with organics, Batcha questioned the movement’s ability to mobilize an effective label, standards, and verification system. “Building up a private label and a standard and getting that in the marketplace in a way that breaks through with the shopper is no small task,” she said.

On a similar note, Adams of Holistic Management International doubts that federal certification for regenerative producers would be effective, and Linley Dixon of the Cornucopia Institute says that while a certification and label are feasible, she dreads the idea of a more complicated marketplace.

Before the movement can make a dent in the market, proponents need to agree on key points, said Anna Meyer, food campaigns director for Green America. “We’re all coming from a place of wanting to do things better, but if we can’t clearly specify what we’re asking for and if we’re asking for 10 different things, it really dilutes the messaging and it does more harm than good.”

For now, regenerative agriculture will be resigned to the liminal space of the agriculture world, and will remain essentially unenforceable in the marketplace until there is a meaningful standard with third-party certification. Consumers can still interact with farms directly and ask producers about their growing practices. And, regardless of the outcome, the dialogue is an important one.

“We’re starting to have these discussions,” Meyer said. “And that’s good, though those are also challenging conversations to have.”

]]>https://collinsreports.com/2017/08/should-regenerative-agriculture-get-its-own-label/feed/0Another day, another FOIA requesthttps://collinsreports.com/2017/07/another-day-another-foia-request/
https://collinsreports.com/2017/07/another-day-another-foia-request/#respondMon, 03 Jul 2017 14:15:23 +0000https://collinsreports.com/?p=3110After six months of filing one Freedom of Information Act request each weekday, I’ve learned a lot — though not necessarily from the records I asked for.

In January, I launched One Freedom of Information Request a Day(1FOIRaDay), an open records project that aims to test the federal government’s compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. Since then, through a crash course in the FOIA process, I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of how the system works (or doesn’t work).

Some of the most important things I’ve learned are when to ask for help, where to look for resources and how to cultivate a zen-like calm in the face of FOIA-borne frustration.

I’ve learned to appreciate the FOIA officers that work to produce records instead of consigning requests to a dank dungeon of bureaucracy, as some of their colleagues do. I’ve also learned to assume the envelope mailed to me from a government agency does not contain the records I requested — rather, it’s another ransom letter saying I’d better clarify my request, or else. But before we dive into the nitty gritty, a few stats on the project so far:

Requests filed from Jan. 9, 2017, to June 8, 2017: 108

Number of requests that were fully granted: 10 (9.2 percent)

Number of requests that were partially granted: 11 (10.1 percent)

Number of requests that were denied: 7 (6.48 percent)

Number of requests in which the agency did not hold the records sought: 14 (12.9 percent)

Number of requests in which records were already publicly available: 3 (2.7 percent)

Number of requests in which exorbitant fees prevented access to records: 1 (0.92 percent)

Number of requests that have reached their logical conclusions: 46 (42.59 percent)

Number of outstanding requests in which the government has violated statutory response times: 46 (42.59 percent)

Number of agencies receiving requests: 53

As you can see, I haven’t had much success in freeing information from the government in a timely fashion. A measly 19 percent of requests have resulted in either a full grant or partial grant, and more troubling, a large minority (43 percent) appear to be at a standstill. In those instances, agencies have surpassed the 20-day statutory period in which they are required to respond to requests — many of them claiming the requests present “unusual circumstances” or are too broad.

If there’s any recourse for this type of foot-dragging, I’m not sure what it is.

On the other hand, the records I have been able to secure are pretty cool. One dataset provided by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service shows the assignment location of every FSIS employee, who usually are stationed at meatpacking facilities or similar businesses. This collection of 576 pages of CDC emails gives valuable insight into the agency’s actions before and after it unceremoniously cancelled its climate summit scheduled to take place in February. This Dept. of Energy document shows the items that have been removed from its website post-Obama.

Perhaps I’ll have more luck in the second half of this project than in the first. Perhaps one of these days, I’ll open the mailbox to find the government has sent records instead of another obstructionist FOIA response. A man can dream.

Until then, I’ll keep filing.

You can follow the 1FOIRaDay project on Twitter or on my website. In the interest of openness, I’m now allowing public access to the Google spreadsheet I use to track requests and notate responses. The key begins at row 319. Feedback, suggestions and ideas are welcome at collinsreports@gmail.com, and if you’d like to donate to this project, you may do so here.

]]>https://collinsreports.com/2017/07/another-day-another-foia-request/feed/0USDA organic cost-share program fails to reach some farmershttps://collinsreports.com/2017/05/theres-funding-to-support-organic-farmers-but-many-dont-know-it-exists/
https://collinsreports.com/2017/05/theres-funding-to-support-organic-farmers-but-many-dont-know-it-exists/#respondTue, 23 May 2017 14:42:06 +0000https://collinsreports.com/?p=2981This story originally was published by Civil Eats.

Like many organic farmers, Laura Davis would rather not pay hundreds of dollars to certify her farm every year. But in recent years she hasn’t had to pay the full cost. That’s because Davis, who runs Long Life Farm in Massachusetts, learned about a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program that helps producers recoup some of the costs of organic certification. Through its cost-share program, the agency has reimbursed Davis for up to 75 percent of her annual recertification fees—about $900—during most of her farm’s seven-year tenure.

“It’s probably the easiest step in the whole certification process,” said Davis, who grows 100 varieties of vegetables and melons on more than two acres in Massachusetts. “It’s one page, and I think we have about a month from the time they send the form out until you have to send it in.”

But, unlike Davis, only about half of the nation’s organic operations participate in the USDA’s organic certification cost-share program. Since the program was created in the 2002 Farm Bill, approximately $60 million has been allocated to it. Not all of the allocated funds have been spent, and due to a series of recent hiccups that have kept that money from reaching farmers, a great deal of money allocated in the 2014 Farm Bill remains available.

Last year, the agency shifted the program from the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to the Farm Service Agency (FSA) after USDA officials determined that the program hadn’t been marketed effectively.

According to an internal USDA memo obtained by Civil Eats, by the end of fiscal year 2015, $4.6 million of the $11.5 million allocated annually from the Farm Bill for the cost share program and Agricultural Management Assistance program went unspent. “Despite significant outreach, AMS and the states have not attracted enough demand from organic entities to expend the available funds,” the memo reads.

When the program was under the purview of the AMS, the USDA worked through state agriculture departments to provide cost sharing. Now the FSA, which works on a county level to build rapport with producers, will administer the program, though farmers in some areas may still apply for funds through state governments.

Inconsistent Outreach Still Hinders Progress

The local outreach is expected to help drum up interest in the program, but when FSA kicked off enrollment in March, it appeared to be off to a rocky start.

At the county level, some FSA employees charged with enrolling interested producers in the program expressed doubt about the effort. At offices in Florida and New York, employees said they hadn’t yet been trained on the latest incarnation of the program, despite the fact that cost-share enrollment had begun there more than a week before.

And inquiries to various FSA agents nationwide yielded a lack of either interest or knowledge of the program. For example, in Brook County, Georgia, an agent said he didn’t expect much interest in the program the area, where cotton, peanuts, and soybeans are the dominant crops. In Bell County, Texas, an employee said that the county only has one organic producer, “so that’s the best we can hope for.” That farmer has not shown interest.

Even in areas where there are more organic producers, interest also appears low. In San Luis Obispo County, California, one producer has been enrolled to get assistance for growing organic hay. An FSA agent in Yakima County, Washington, said interest has been low, likely because most producers are accustomed to applying for funds through the state government. But in Nassau County, New York, an employee of the FSA said his office already had received several inquiries about cost sharing.

FSA spokespeople declined several interview requests for this story.

Still, FSA’s takeover of the program means the USDA “is taking organic more seriously. They’re graduating from the kids’ table, in a sense,” said Mark Lipson, an organic policy consultant and former USDA policy adviser under former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. With help from state governments and other entities, FSA can make the program work, he said.

“It’s not impossible. FSA definitely reaches a lot more farmers in general than any other agency,” Lipson said.

“I do think there’s a lot of work to be done in terms of making sure FSA employees are working with producers,” Charney said. “This is a new program for them, and I think they’re taking steps. That’s going to take time and training and outreach.”

But if the USDA wants to increase cost-sharing enrollment, it’ll have to convince organic producers first—and make sure that they know the program even exists. In a recent survey conducted by the Organic Trade Association (OTA), 200 of the 500 producers, handlers, and other stakeholders included in the survey (40 percent) said they had never received cost-share assistance. Of those who hadn’t, one-third said they had never heard of the program.

The USDA’s own literature recognizes that “many current and prospective certified organic operations are not aware of this reimbursement opportunity, or how to apply for reimbursement.”

Other participants in the OTA poll who didn’t receive cost-share funds said that the program didn’t reimburse enough of the costs associated with certification. Some said the application process is too cumbersome or that the window to apply is too narrow.

Lipson said that depending on where those producers lived, those program criticisms could be valid. “When the program was only delivered by the state departments of agriculture, there was quite a wide variability between the application process and the time window,” he said. But, as farmer Laura Davis noted, her experience was that the application process was neither cumbersome nor time-consuming.

Producers interested in enrolling in the cost-share program can visit the FSA’s website or go to an FSA office in their county. Eligible producers include any certified producers or handlers who have paid organic or transitional certification fees to a USDA-accredited certifying agent.

]]>https://collinsreports.com/2017/05/theres-funding-to-support-organic-farmers-but-many-dont-know-it-exists/feed/0CDC fund not used for zumba and massages, agency sayshttps://collinsreports.com/2017/04/cdc-fund-not-used-for-zumba-and-massages-agency-says/
https://collinsreports.com/2017/04/cdc-fund-not-used-for-zumba-and-massages-agency-says/#respondMon, 24 Apr 2017 19:29:46 +0000https://collinsreports.com/?p=2887The CDC did not use money from a disease prevention fund for zumba classes or massage sessions, according to a message sent by the agency in response to a FOIA request.

In March, Republican lawmakers targeted the CDC during talks to repeal the Affordable Care Act — they accused agency officials of using money set aside for preventing disease outbreaks and reducing childhood lead poisoning for zumba classes and massage session. GOP leaders told CNN last month that the agency used its Prevention and Public Health Fund as a “slush fund.”

The $1 billion fund accounts for 12 percent of the CDC’s budget and was created as part of former president Obama’s signature healthcare bill. It supports health initiatives to fight Alzheimer’s Disease, heart disease and stroke, among others.

The issue may be a moot point now, though, as Republicans still are reeling from the failed attempt to replace the Affordable Care Act. Congress is expected to tackle healthcare again amid mounting pressure to avoid a government shutdown this month.

]]>https://collinsreports.com/2017/04/cdc-fund-not-used-for-zumba-and-massages-agency-says/feed/0Claiming trade secrets, FDA won’t say who received contaminated fruithttps://collinsreports.com/2017/03/claiming-trade-secrets-fda-wont-say-who-received-contaminated-fruit/
https://collinsreports.com/2017/03/claiming-trade-secrets-fda-wont-say-who-received-contaminated-fruit/#respondThu, 16 Mar 2017 15:18:26 +0000https://collinsreports.com/?p=2768The FDA is refusing to say which companies received recalled shipments of Egyptian strawberries contaminated with Hepatitis A last year — an act the agency defends as protecting companies’ trade secrets.

The shipments were sent by Egyptian producer/exporter International Company for Agricultural Production and Processing. On March 8, I asked the FDA for a list of businesses that had received the ICAPP strawberries, which were recalled late last year.

On March 16, the FDA denied the request, citing a “trade secret” exemption to the Freedom of Information Act — the agency considers confidential information regarding who supplies businesses with products, even if the products are subject to recall. Essentially, this means the FDA protects the companies it regulates, possibly to the detriment of public health.

The FDA’s protocol is at odds with how another government agency charged with ensuring food safety operates. The Washington Post notes that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service makes public customer information when poultry or meat products have been recalled. A rule published in 2008 makes FSIS customer lists releasable if “there is a reasonable probability that the use of the recalled product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.”

The FDA’s recall system needs more transparency. An Office of the Inspector General audit report released last year shows that the FDA does not have policies in place to ensure that businesses comply with recall orders. In two instances, the OIG audit found that the FDA “did not initiate the recall of all potentially harmful products until 165 days and 81 days after FDA became aware of the potential contaminations.”

“As a result, consumers remained at risk of illness or death for several weeks after FDA was aware of a potentially hazardous food in the supply chain,” the report says.

When the FDA is reticent to warn the public about contaminated food, access to the names of businesses receiving recalled products becomes even more crucial — if the regulatory agency won’t alert the public, the news media should. I plan on appealing the decision, but I’m afraid the agency’s trade secret standard won’t change until it’s pursued through litigation.

]]>https://collinsreports.com/2017/03/claiming-trade-secrets-fda-wont-say-who-received-contaminated-fruit/feed/0The FAA wants $2.3 million and 28 years for airspace hazard recordshttps://collinsreports.com/2017/02/the-faa-wants-2-3-million-and-28-years-for-airspace-hazard-records/
https://collinsreports.com/2017/02/the-faa-wants-2-3-million-and-28-years-for-airspace-hazard-records/#respondTue, 28 Feb 2017 16:51:32 +0000https://collinsreports.com/?p=2717Some government agencies just hate releasing records. The FBI and the USDA recently have proved they’ll do just about anything to skirt transparent recordkeeping, and I’d like to add the Federal Aviation Administration to that list.

On Jan. 12, I requested two years’ worth of airspace hazard notifications sent by the FAA to project developers when proposed structures, such as oil rigs and wind turbines, were judged to be a possible impediment to air traffic. The agency conducts about 100,000 assessments each year to determine whether structures are safe to build, and in some cases it finds that a proposed development would be hazardous for air traffic.

In less than a week, the FAA responded — by saying the information requested is already available on its website. It isn’t. I asked the agency to continue processing the request and provide the relevant documents. After wrangling over whether I’m actually a journalist (which apparently is difficult to prove) I also was informed my request for a fee waiver was denied.

Strangely, the FAAoffered to set me up with its database contractor, who said it could supply me with the requested documents for the low, low price of $4,275. I declined. It appeared as if I — and vis-a-vis the public at large — was being punished for the FAA’s choice to keep records in such a way that they aren’t easily releasable. And it also appeared as if I, a destitute records requester, was being used as a tool to fatten the wallet of the contractor, CGH Technologies.

Next I asked if I could just have the entire database, since obtaining the information that way wouldn’t require the contractor to manually locate and download thousands of files. No dice, Kreischer said, since FOIA doesn’t require release of some of the documents in the database. Furthermore, the entire dataset would cost $2.3 million and take 28 years to produce, he said.

Since the main point of contention in this case is that some of the documents in the database aren’t subject to disclosure, I asked specifically what FOIA exemptions the agency was claiming. Kreischer refused. I insisted. Still no answer was given, and Kreischer closed the request, claiming it was “unreasonably burdensome.”

I plan to file an appeal in the case. I’ve already sent a separate FOIA request for a copy of the contract CGH Technologies holds with the FAA. I suspect the agency will stonewall and overcharge for that information as well.

]]>https://collinsreports.com/2017/02/the-faa-wants-2-3-million-and-28-years-for-airspace-hazard-records/feed/0Applause due for APHIS blowbackhttps://collinsreports.com/2017/02/applause-due-for-aphis-blowback/
https://collinsreports.com/2017/02/applause-due-for-aphis-blowback/#respondFri, 10 Feb 2017 16:10:55 +0000https://collinsreports.com/?p=2613Let’s hear a round of applause for the journalists and advocates who rushed to the rescue when the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service pulled inspection and enforcement data from its website last week.

On Feb. 3, APHIS removed from its website a database that once allowed users to see agency inspection reports under the Animal Welfare Act and Horse Protection Act. The reports, which were made public through the settlement of a 2005 Humane Society lawsuit against APHIS, showed whether zoos, animal research facilities and other animal-related operations were compliant with the acts.

In its blog, the Humane Society noted that it previously had used the database to levy public scrutiny on puppy mills, roadside zoos and horse sorers.

It’s not clear what caused the removal of the data, though some have speculated that President Trump’s administration may be to blame. A Washington Post report indicates it could have something to do with a lawsuit in which a violator of the acts sued the USDA for publishing his identity in the reports.

APHIS did not give the public notice before removing the reports from its website. In place of the database, the agency offers this explanation:

If the data removal was intended to be conducted quietly, the move backfired. Within days, the story was making national news headlines, prompting the outrage of animal rights activists, journalists and transparency advocates. The Humane Society immediately took legal action to make the reports public again.

And regardless of whether it was appropriate for the agency to remove data from its website during a lawsuit (and I don’t think it was), I’m impressed with the open records community’s quick response to what it clearly saw as a call to action.

Among the fast actors was Russ Kick, the open records activist who runs The Memory Hole 2, a website dedicated to obtaining government documents and releasing them to the public. On Feb. 6, in response to the APHIS database closure, The Memory Hole posted thousands of the agency’s reports, which Kick happened to download in July 2016.

“Whenever there are documents that were online, but got pulled offline, they’re automatically important,” Kick said in an interview with Motherboard. “Nobody’s going to go through the trouble to delete something that doesn’t matter.”

The Sunlight Foundation, a government transparency organization, has started a project to track the removal of data from government websites since Trump’s presidency began. And as of today, the APHIS reports are available for download from data.world as a .csv file.

I also plan to send a weekly FOIA request to the agency for any inspection reports completed in the previous week. That way, even if Humane Society efforts to resurrect the database are unsuccessful, the reports will still be available to the public.

The U.S. government has been pushing hard recently for requesters to file FOIAs through its own centralized portal, known as FOIAonline, instead of sending requests from personal or work email accounts.

Since I began the 1FOIRaDay project this year, I’ve been directed by government FOIA officers to the online portal several times. In one of those instances, it was by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the form of an automated email response. My request, sent Jan. 30, sought agency communications regarding the illegal detainment of refugees under a Trump administration executive order.

The email bounced back. CBP’s FOIA office said I needed to file using FOIAonline.

My first thought: No way. The agency had received a legal request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act, I thought, and it is obliged to respond. I should be able to write a request on a piece of toilet paper and still get a response. I’m not using your damn portal.

I should mention now that I had not, at that point, ever filed a request through FOIAonline. For all I knew it could have been the magical conduit through which all requests are processed within statutory time limits, where all requesters are awarded fee waivers and nary a (b)6 exemption is to be found.

My justification, I suppose, is that I’d had a bad experience with a government FOIA portal before. While writing for the the Times Record News, I had filed a FOIA request for documents held by a little-known Department of Defense agency that screens wind energy projects proposed near military bases.

The request had made some movement along the Pentagon’s notoriously slow FOIA track when I decided to leave the newspaper to pursue journalism as an independent reporter. When I returned to the portal I used to file the request, I couldn’t find the correct password to sign in, and I couldn’t reset the password because I no longer had access to the Gannett email account registered to the portal.

I’ll probably never get that information. Is that partly my fault? Yes. Is it partly the government’s fault for requiring requesters to maintain a username and password to request documents from a single obscure federal agency? Yes.

I’m trying to approach FOIAonline without extreme prejudice. Though not all agencies may be queried from it, some important agencies are listed as respondents, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Navy, the Federal Communications Commission and Customs and Border Protection.

A few members of a Syracuse University FOIA listserv say good things about it, as does an Associated Press investigative journalist. The portal also posts documents released as part of previous records requests, which could be useful.

I used FOIAonline for the first time Jan. 31 to request the emails of former U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, whom President Donald Trump recently fired.

We’ll see how it goes.

]]>https://collinsreports.com/2017/01/begrudgingly-ill-test-drive-foiaonline/feed/0The runaround, the spokesmanhttps://collinsreports.com/2017/01/the-runaround-the-spokesman/
https://collinsreports.com/2017/01/the-runaround-the-spokesman/#respondSat, 28 Jan 2017 18:59:41 +0000https://collinsreports.com/?p=2517I’m relatively new to the practice of sending requests for information to the federal government, but I’ve seen this tactic before.

My request asked for emails sent, received, drafted or deleted by Chavonda Jacobs-Young, the research service’s administrator, containing a few keywords: peer-review, media, Congress, Trump, etc. In relatively short order, an employee in the research service’s FOIA office calls me on Jan. 27. to acknowledge the agency has received my request.

But then she says the agency has already compiled some documents that were responsive to my request, and if I called a spokesman, he’d give them to me. Also, she adds, she wants to place my request on hold until after I get whatever documents her coworker has. My request could take a long time to complete, and the other documents are already available, so why don’t I just get those?

Though it wasn’t explicitly stated, she was offering me a deal: We’ll give you a few emails we’ve specially selected if you quit bothering us.

I politely but firmly remind her that no reason exists for my request to be placed on hold. According to Sec. 300.7 of FOIA, requests may be placed on hold if they’re deemed “imperfect,” but that applies to defective requests that are missing pertinent information. I tell her I’ll contact her colleague and see what documents he has, but I still want what I originally asked for. My request is to be processed as required by law.

I called the agency spokesman. He was nice. He offered me the same emails that had already been leaked to newsrooms across the world.

I’ve seen this tactic — public officials sacrificing a few innocuous documents in hopes a reporter will chill — at the local and state level. I’m not surprised it’s in play at the USDA. And the agency may have reason to worry: one of the employees mentioned to me that the USDA has received 25 to 35 requests similar to mine.

Though I could speculate on what the documents I’ve requested will say, there’s really no telling. There could be a bombshell story there or there could be nothing at all. But when officials give reporters the run around, it makes our ears prick up. I makes us want to dig deeper.

It makes us wonder what they’re hiding.

20170123 Interim Proceduressecretary’s interim procedures 12209
]]>https://collinsreports.com/2017/01/the-runaround-the-spokesman/feed/0Referendum could protect against ‘Elevator Man’ swindleshttps://collinsreports.com/2016/11/referendum-could-protect-against-elevator-man-swindles/
https://collinsreports.com/2016/11/referendum-could-protect-against-elevator-man-swindles/#respondTue, 01 Nov 2016 20:26:05 +0000https://collinsreports.com/?p=2422This story originally appeared in the Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas.

The victims of Bobby Johnson — the infamous North Texas swindler of grain elevator fame — likely understand the benefit of entering into grain insurance programs.

But with a state insurance referendum on the horizon, it’s still unclear whether farmers will vote for more protections against grain elevator failures. Wheat crops specifically are selling more than $2 below the cost of production, and cash-strapped farmers may err on the side of riskier business deals to avoid an additional insurance fee.

“I hear talk on both sides of (the referendum). I think it’s very divided right now,” said Barry Mahler, Wichita County commissioner and farmer. “It will have a difficult time passing.”

Mahler recalled one the best known agricultural swindles in Texas history, in which grain buyer Johnson promised to buy substantial volumes of crops from North Texas farmers, but then sold the grain to make a land purchase in Benjamin.

Johnson overextended his investment and ran out of money. Many farmers who trusted Johnson to store their grain were never paid, and those who did receive money only got pennies on the dollar. Johnson tried to fake his own death in Mexico, and for a time, was successful.

After he was caught and jailed, Midwestern State University professor Jim Hoggard chronicled Johnson’s life in the book “Elevator Man.”

“When you’ve got your entire year’s work tied up in the elevator, it could be devastating,” said Mahler, whose family was one of those conned by Johnson.

When farmers sell their crop — in many cases to buyers with the ability to store grain in large silos — they generally don’t get paid right away. The payment is deferred, and between the time of sale and the time of payment, a grain buyer can go out of business because bankruptcy, legal trouble or other reasons.

In such cases, farmers may not be reimbursed for the value of the siloed crop.

The proposed crop insurance program would require producers of wheat, corn, soybeans and sorghum to pay an additional 0.02 percent of their grain value to elevators, which then would send the money to the state.

Though grain elevator bankruptcies are uncommon, they do occur. Reporting on the failures appears to be sparse, but at least one elevator in Sherman went belly-up in 2009.

In 2011, Gov. Rick Perry initially signed the bill allowing the referendum to take place. A year later, farmers voted the measure down, in part because of misinformation about the measure, a North Texas wheat farmer who sits on the referendum’s board said.

Only farmers who have produced grain in the past three years may cast a vote on the measure, which is not listed on the general election ballot in November. Voting can be done at county AgriLife extension offices or by mail. The referendum will be conducted Dec. 5-9.